


Loss

by kijikun



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied Relationships, Nightmares, implied Bumblebee/Smokescreen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 05:12:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6181606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijikun/pseuds/kijikun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Earth has been cyberformed, but Optimus' grief and failure takes on a personal strain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loss

**Author's Note:**

> beta: harutemu

Optimus moved as if something gummed up his hydraulics. He felt half still in recharge. His optics wouldn't focus and the world around him seemed to scramble and go sideways. 

He shuttered his optics until he felt steady on his pedes. When he opened them again -- he wished to Primus he hadn't.

A dark and corrupted Cybertron surrounded him. A Cybertron bent to Megatron's twisted and poisoned will. The tiny part of his processor that once insisted it wasn't truly Megatronus but the Dark Energon moving through him disappeared like a bad line of code.

It only took the space of two kliks to glean something else. 

Ahead of him was the familiar - but also unfamiliar - shape of the hidden base he'd called a home of sorts for a great many Earth years. No longer reddish stone surrounded by endless dusty emptiness, it now looked more like one of the natural formations engeron had once been mined from. 

He looked about him in horror, looked towards the town -- that now rose up tall. A Cybertronian settlement in all appearances. 

His tanks churned. His pedes nearly gave out under him. 

This wasn't Cybertron. 

"No," his own voice sounded too loud, too alive for this living graveyard (how many humans were dead, how many innocent lives lost, how many would he grieve until his functioning ended -- ). "I stopped this."

Hadn't he?

He -- 

Optimus stumbled forward finding he couldn't remember. After so long on Earth’s soft dirt and soil the cyberformed ground felt _wrong_ under his pedes. The thinner atmosphere felt wrong as it flowed into his vents. 

::Autobots, respond.:: He comm'd almost desperately. 

There could be a chance the humans survived. Though he found in his spark he only really wanted -- needed to know the fate of a small handful of humans. Jack would have been with Arcee and Smokescreen, wouldn’t he? He should be -- the children should be -- 

_June._

He pushed her - painfully - from his processor. He needed to focus, find his team, assess the damages --

::Opti-- fsstt --mus.::

Smokescreen. 

::I'm coming Smokescreen. Give me your location as best you can. I will come to you.:: Optimus scanned the surrounding more carefully this time. This time he found a heat signature. 

Strange, he would have sworn there hadn’t been --

::I'm --ssssttttss-- sorry.::

::I have a visual of you. I'm coming to you.:: Once he would have assured the young mech that it would be okay, would have offered comfort -- but he wouldn't lie to Smokescreen. Not now when everything was stacked against them in the worst ways. He hurried over the familiar - unfamiliar ground.

It seemed to take far longer than it should have. His processor felt stuck in a data loop. 

Still he pressed forward, ignoring the deactivated Vechicon frames he passed and the remains of military aircrafts. He would deal and fully process what he was seeing later. After he'd seen to the health of his youngest team member.

His hydraulics almost failed him when he reached Smokescreen.

Smokescreen's lower frame was twisted and mangled. Bumblebee lay besides him, frame half twisted into Smokescreen's. They'd been holding each other, Optimus realized. 

Then he realized Bumblebee’s frame --

It had gone grey.

Optimus stumbled forward, going to his knees next to Smokescreen. "Smokescreen, I'm here."

"Sor-rrssst--," Smokescreen’s vocalizer spit more static than proper glyphs. His optics were dim and cracked. "Couldn't -- prot--ttssssee--ect -- "

"Rest," Optimus told him gently. He pressed a hand against the young mech's face to help him focus. He didn't dare move him. "I'll get Ratchet."

"Jack," Smokescreen said, optics flickering, "Jack."

Smokescreen’s optics went dark. His frame went grey.

Cleansing fluid blurred Optimus’ vision as he touched the chest plates of both the young mechs that had been in his charge, mourning their extinguished sparks. 

Bumblebee, only a mechling pretending to be a minibot when Optimus first met him, who he'd seen grow and change -- and suffer-- as he turned into a fine young mech that Optimus was so very proud to call part of his Team and life. 

Smokescreen who’d barely had a chance to live - who'd never known anything but War. The last student of his Mentor. Brash and stubborn but with so much promise and life -- 

"I'm sorry," he whispered. 

The world seemed to shift as he cleared his optics. Under Smokescreen and Bumblebee lay another mech -- no two other mechs -- Optimus realized. He -- had they been there?

 _Jack_ , Smokescreen had said before deactivating. 

Fear gripped his spark as he gently, so very gently moved aside Smokescreen and Bumblebee's frames.

There -- though they looked nothing like they once had -- lay Jack and June. He knew them in his spark. He knew them even as they were now. 

Cybertronians. 

Jack’s form had been changed into a two wheeler like Arcee's. His frame had already gone grey, but Optimus could imagine the colors. They would have been as bright and vibrant as Jack had been. He -- 

Optimus choked back a sob that threatened to steal its way up his vocalizer.

 

"Optimus?" 

His helm jerked towards June -- 

Her optics were dim, but light still backed them. Oh -- a rotary, of course. Like the earth helicopters June had once rode in to help treat and stabilize soldiers and then civilians before she shifted to being a triage nurse at her hospital. Medic symbols were proudly and brightly displayed on her frame 

She was beautiful. 

She'd always been beautiful to him. 

"June," he whispered, vocalizer crackling. He cupped her face. He couldn't tell her it was alright, that he'd find her help. She'd know. "I'm sorry. I failed you. I failed you all."

Her smile was sad as she covered his hand with her own. "You didn't," she told him haltingly. "...Did what you thought was right."

Had he? He -- "No."

"Smokescreen and Bumblebee tried to shield us," she told him. "Jack -- we didn't know how to access weapons or fight -- could barely stand."

He leaned closer pressing his forehelm to hers. "Save your strength, June. I will find Ratchet. I -- _I can't lose you too._ ”

"My systems are shutting down," June told him weakly. "This isn't your fault, Optimus."

"I wasn't here. I didn't stop him." He'd known, always known, what he and June had wouldn't and couldn't last, but not like this. It couldn't end like this. 

"Don't be so hard on the mech I love," June whispered. Her lips touched his.

She went still.

His spark surged in pain, in rage. 

"No," he whispered, gathering her greying frame to his chest. Rocking her as if it would help. Bring her back, the mate of his spark. Bring Jack back. Bring Smokescreen and Bumblebee back. His creations even if not by spark and frame or even species. "No!"

"Optimus," Ratchet's voice came to him from a great distance.

He curled over June, over Jack, over Smokescreen and Bumblebee. 

"Optimus, you need to get up," Ratchet told him. 

"No," he said brokenly. "Leave me, Ratchet, please."

"Orion Pax, get your aft up!" A hand shook his frame.

"Let me grieve, Ratchet!" Optimus roared, lashing out blindly.

The world went bright then seemingly reformed around him. He cycled his optics. This -- 

This was his quarters in their new base. Ratchet was standing a few steps away hands up in a clear calming gesture. Optimus covered his optics with a hand for a few kilks trying to recenter himself.

"Optimus?" Ratchet’s voice had gone gentle, concerned. "You were worrying me, you wouldn't come out of recharge."

"I -- bad recharge flux, old friend," Optimus said roughly. "I'm sorry -- I'm sorry."

Ratchet touched his arm, his field pressing comfortingly against Optimus’. "Don't apologize for that. You've had more than enough reasons for a bad recharge." Then in a lower, soft tone that only Optimus had heard in vorns. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Optimus shook his head. "Not now. It's still too -- fresh." He cleared his intake, pressing his palms against the berth, steadying himself more. "Where are June and Jack -- and Bumblebee and Smokescreen?"

"Bumblebee and Smokescreen are on patrol. June I believe is in the base’s medibay coordinating with the humans’ medics. The kids are asleep," Ratchet told him. He stroked Optimus’ arm, just as his field stroked the Prime’s. "Take it they were the focus."

"Yes -- I can't. Not now," Optimus said leaning into his oldest friend. His amica in all but name. "It hurts too much."

"Shuu," Ratchet rumbled. "It's alright. I've got you."

Optimus’ frame shuddered and he curled himself around Ratchet. "She looked beautiful as a mech," the words weren't what he wanted or planned to say, but they came despite himself.

"Oh, Optimus," Ratchet whispered, and held him tighter.

Optimus would explain later as much as he could. For now he clung to his oldest and dearest friend, and did the mostly un-Primely thing he could.

He let himself be selfish. 

 


End file.
